Postage printing systems are well known in the art. A typical postage meter (one example of a postage printing system) includes an accounting structure and a printer so as to apply evidence of postage, commonly referred to as postal indicia, to an envelope or other mailpiece and accounts for the value of the postage dispensed. Generally, the accounting structure and the printer are integrated into the same housing and are dedicated devices. Examples of such postage printing systems are the PostPerfect.RTM. postage meter and the Paragon.RTM. II mail processor, both of which are available from Pitney Bowes Inc. of Stamford, Conn.
As is well known, postage meters include an ascending register, that stores a running total of all postage dispensed by the meter, and a descending register, that holds the remaining amount of postage credited to the meter and that is reduced by the amount of postage dispensed during a transaction. The postage meter generally also includes a control sum register that provides a check upon the descending and ascending registers. The control sum register has a running account of the total funds having been added into the meter. As a result, the control sum register must always correspond with the summed readings of the ascending and descending registers. Thus, the control sum register is the total amount of postage ever put into the machine and it is alterable only when adding funds to the meter. In this manner, by inspecting the various registers and securing them from tampering, the dispensing of postal funds may be accurately recorded, tracked and accounted for.
More recently, postage printing systems have been developed where the accounting structure described above is physically separated from the printer. In some postage printing systems, the accounting structure is not even resident with the user of the postage printing system. For example, in a "virtual postage meter" environment, the user does not possess a physical accounting structure as described above. Instead, postage is dispensed electronically over suitable communication channels (LAN, WAN, telephone lines, Internet, etc.) to a personal computer and printed using a general purpose office printer, such as those commonly available from Hewlett-Packard, Canon, Epson and others, attached to the personal computer. The user maintains an account with a remotely located data center (maintained by an authorized postage meter manufacturer) and receives postage securely using appropriate electronic data interchange techniques. At a later time, the user is invoiced for the amount of postage dispensed and any other fees associated with maintaining the account with the data center. In other types of postage metering systems, the user does maintain a small electronic device attached to a personal computer that services as the accounting structure described above. However, in both types of systems, the user utilizes the general purpose printer for printing postage indicia.
Oftentimes, a secret code or token is derived from information particular to the mailpiece (the indicated postage amount, date, recipient address information, etc.) and is incorporated or embedded into the postal indicium for later use by a postal authority in verifying the integrity of the postal indicium. Thus, the postal authority typically requires a correspondence between the postal indicium and its associated address. Examples of such systems are described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,725,718 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,454,038.
These types of postage printing systems require that the user feed the mailpiece through the general purpose printer so that a postal indicium may be printed thereon. In the case where the mailpiece is a standard size business envelope, such as a #10 envelope, this may be accomplished with relative ease once the idiosyncrasies of feeding envelopes through the printer (input location, orientation, registration, etc.) have been learned. On the other hand, other types of mailpieces, such as: small envelopes, oversized envelopes, thick envelopes, post cards, boxes, tubes, etc., are irregularly sized and cannot be fed through general purpose printers. Thus, other arrangements must be made to accommodate applying postage indicia to these types of irregular mailpieces.
To address this issue, it is known to print postage indicia on labels and apply the labels to the irregular mailpieces. Generally, the label stock may be fed through the general purpose printer to effect printing postage indicia. Alternatively, where increased productivity is desired, the general purpose printer may be replaced with a specialized label printer such as those commonly available from CoStar Corporation of Greenwich, Conn. or Eltron International, Inc. of California. An example of such a postage printing system including a specialized label printer is described in PCT patent application number PCT/US98/19688, entitled A COMBINATION ADDRESS AND POSTAGE LABEL AND SYSTEM FOR PRODUCING THE SAME, published on Apr. 1, 1999. In this system, blank adhesive label stock containing separable label segments is fed through the printer. Once the postal indicium, address and other data has been printed, the user separates the individual label segments and places them on a mailpiece.
Although a postage printing system including a specialized label printer works generally well, it suffers from certain drawbacks and disadvantages. First, the specialized label printer adds to the cost of the overall system. For some low volume users, this increased cost may not be acceptable. Second, the specialized label printer takes up additional space. In many small office and home offices, desk space is at a premium. Therefore, anything that takes up desk space and is only used sparingly is inefficient and gets pushed to the side.
Although a postage printing system including a general office printer where the label stock may be fed through the printer to effect printing postage works generally well, it also suffers from certain drawbacks and disadvantages. First, there is a risk that the user may not feed the label stock properly through the printer. The resulting jams and/or misprints cause the user to lose money because the postage is lost from failure to be applied correctly to the label. Second, if the user employs readily available label sheets including a plurality of labels, such as those commonly available from Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company of Minneapolis, Minn. or Avery Dennison Corporation of Pasadena, Calif., then a great deal of waste is created for several reasons. One reason is that the label sheets cannot be repeatedly fed through the printer as they tend to curl and become unusable. This is especially true with laser printers due to the heat generated by the fuser rollers. Thus, the user must often throw away the label sheet prematurely. Another reason is that it is difficult to direct the printing of the postal indicium to the correct location on the label sheet where a label still exists. For example, although Microsoft.RTM. Word includes a label printing utility, it is not user friendly for aligning the commencement of printing with the beginning of a label. More specifically, this general purpose word processing system requires that the user enter a row number and column number to commence printing. This is awkward for the user to obtain either by estimating or by measuring the label stock being used. Thus, the user may experience printing problems leading to lost postage.
Therefore, there is a need for an improved postage printing system for printing on label stock that provides safeguards for feeding the label stock and directing printing accordingly on the label stock. More particularly, there is a need for a postage printing system including a printer and a label stock adapted to be fed through the printer where the printer prints postal payment information on at a designated location corresponding to input received from the user and relating to the availability of labels on the label stock.